Il Palazzin Hotel

3 readers found this review helpful

I booked 2 twin rooms after researching on the net for reviews about this hotel, as I found a decent package holiday on lastminute. Seeing some 1 star and some 5 star reviews, I decided to gamble as I wasn't looking for luxury, just a clean and relatively comfortable place to stay for a few nights. It was not a gamble worth taking.
We arrived at 2am because our flight was delayed, and so were unable to do anything when they told us that the 4 of us were all sharing a room, despite having booked 2 and had to get it sorted in the morning. So we all had to share the one bathroom and it was 3.15 before we got to bed. It turned out that the staff all seemed confused about what was going on, were we told we had booked 2 rooms but our printed hotel voucher said it was one room, which I corrected them on and the receptionist said she would get onto our agency about the mix up which I doubt she ever did as we never heard anything regarding them ever again and our holiday rep hadn't heard anything.
The rooms, although clean and decent enough had mattresses which you sank into like giant marshmallows, really old bedding and exposed sharp edges on the bottom of a couple of the smaller beds which I scraped the backs of my legs on everytime I went to get something from the wardrobe because the beds were just squeezed into the space. The food was also dull as people have commented on already, dinner which we dared try on the first night was abyssmal - lukewarm burnt pasta and bizarre tasting aubergine. Yet we would've forgiven this if we didn't get some appalling attitude from a particular receptionist.
My friend and her son were given their own room the following day, but the air conditioning didn't work. When we told the member of staff this she said that it just needed to be left on longer to kick in, so it was and still nothing. When my friend went down to complain the receptionist said yeah it doesn't work, she could give her a fan for the night and noone would come to fix it until the next day; she'd already given us good service for a room we weren't entitled to as we'd only booked one and if she didn't like it she could go back to our 4 person room. So not only was she a liar but she had the worst attitude, I don't even know why she works in hospitality. She wouldn't give her name when asked and only said the manager wasn't in when he was asked for. The fan was brought and the air con fixed but then both only worked on one setting and it was still too hot for sleeping properly through the night. My friend's son then slept in our room because of the heat in their room, which was not ideal because us two women needed to get changed and everything.
Some members of staff did try to help (not that woman of course) so I give them credit for that, but after that 1st day the stay was pretty much ruined as we were afflicted by paranoia that staff who hated us had access to all of our stuff during the day.
Positives were the location of the hotel, it was very close to a bus terminus; proximity to many restaurants although most serve only pizza, pasta and grill and you have to look around for more local fare, I would recommended the small Plum Tree restaurant for it's tasty food and cozy feel; access to the beautiful sea was also good. Buses are a very cheap and convenient way to get to almost anyplace on the island, we got bus passes but this was only to save us looking for change as it as good value as just paying per trip, you'd need to take 6 single trips a day. We enjoyed seeing the island, but the experience was marred by the hotel debacle and I urge you all to STAY THE HELL AWAY!! Spend your hard-earned cash elsewhere.